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Lee Gooden aka "L.A. Gooden" (born January 18 1968), is an American playwright, director, and poet. His stage productions often contain critiques of morality and contemporary culture. Gooden is noted most recently for creating and producing material to be performed by people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities.

Biography

Gooden married his wife, Lindy, in the 1990s. They have three daughters.

Gooden is the winner of the 1995 Parnassus Award for Poetry.

In 2000, Lee Gooden co-created the production company Triumvirate Creative Associates (T.C.A.) with co-founders Brett Scoville and Leon Spath to showcase their own original works using regional talent. T.C.A. successfully produced a number of plays including Concessions, the Leaning House of Pizza, and Quarternity all written by Gooden, as well as notable works such as The Glass Menagerie. Co-founder Brett Scoville spearheaded the 2003 Upstate Poetry Festival which featured regional poets and musicians from the upper Hudson Valley. Gooden put his own poetry aside for the most part, focusing on emceeing the event, using his regional standing as an up and coming writer to draw an audience, with modest success.

Gooden was soon approached by his regional ARC to consider creating a short-short play for them. The WWARC drama group features performances by people with developmental disabilities. Dialogue For Identity was performed by The WWARC Drama Group and Gooden won the Award for best short play. Gooden's relationship with the drama group continued with a futuristic courtroom drama, The First Stone in 2004. Gooden’s modern adaptation of A Christmas Carol, retitled Xmas Carole, was also performed by the WWARC Drama Group in 2005. Gooden’s full-length comedic murder mystery Rushes was performed in April 2006, by the WWARC Drama Group.

Gooden began reviewing others' works, publishing both in print and online media such as ForeWardmagazine.com He also has written literary book reviews for Scribesworld.com, and independently for subsidy, p.o.d, and OALA Reviews. His review of the Ann Kelly novel, Dead On, was chosen for the iUniverse Publishing Author News Web site.

Gooden also continues to shepherd his other works into production such as the 2004 short play Signed, Sealed, and Delivered - part of WILD'S annual Valley of Legends show at McAllen University in McAllen, Texas.